Topshop Unique / Spring 2013 RTW

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Well, that was rather unexpected. After seasons of über-themed shows from Topshop’s designer label Unique, each one styled to a level that would make Lady Gaga look like a jeans–and–T-shirt kind of gal, next spring sees the label go all grown-up and polished, with nary a flash of neon, punk studding, or shredded denim in sight. It’s clear that under the creative control of former British Vogue fashion director Kate Phelan Unique is taking a more sophisticated approach, a process Phelan started with the pared-down utilitarian deluxe fall collection that’s now hitting stores. This, in a nutshell, is what she and her team are thinking of for next season: plenty of soft, wide gauzy pants in a bold check, blown-up painterly florals and silver on one side, white on the other, variously worn with an oversize jacket, tee, or shirt; a swingingly voluminous palest-ecru biker jacket over a short black lean skirt; and two great sculpted tops—one in a gray neoprene-like sweatshirting, the other in white ribbed cotton punctuated with zippers—both paired with short narrow skirts doing that double-layer thing we saw in New York last week, here combining sheer with opaque, matte with shine. Worn with all of this was the simplest statement in shoes: barely there ankle-strap stilettos in white leather mixed with clear plastic, that synthetic also turning up on more than one runway in London, and, for that matter, in New York.

What’s interesting about all this is that in some ways it’s the bravest move Topshop could make. After a decade or so of creating looks that referenced the vagaries of street style with an intense speed, this shift to clothes that could dress women in their 30s, 40s, and beyond might just be a smart one. One thing about fast fashion is that it has tended to skew ever younger. Unique’s vision of spring will speak to those in that until-now disenfranchised constituency who don’t think they have one foot in the grave but have it firmly planted in a closet full of pieces that are cool, nuanced, and youthful without being young. Will teen and twentysomething Topshop acolytes find something here for them? That’s to be seen. Yet, sitting front row, Pixie Geldof, a virtual poster child for all the aching street hipness the brand stands for, was wearing a crisp white J.W. Anderson for Topshop shirt, black kilt, and sedate silver sandals, her hair a demure dark brown rather than the trashy blonde with roots of old. Could be that even the kids are ready to look like adults.